COMMUNISTS: The Government Rests

The crowds which had jammed the Manhattan courtroom thinned; the jury trying Alger Hiss for perjury relaxed. After ten days of bear-pit tension, the testimony of ex-Communist-Courier Whittaker Chambers and his wife was finally complete. Hulking, flat-voiced Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Murphy hoisted himself into a sitting position on a corner of the Government table and began a careful job of legal bricklaying—matching the "pumpkin papers" and other secret documents with the originals from which they had been copied.

While the jury stared at huge enlargements of the exhibits, Murphy read...